Various cleaning articles have been created for dusting and light cleaning. For example, cloth rags and paper towels used dry or wetted with polishing and cleaning compositions have been used on relatively flat surfaces such as countertops, showers, sinks and floors. But, rags and paper towels are problematic for reasons such as hygiene (the user's hand may touch chemicals, dirt or the surface during cleaning), reach (it may be difficult to insert the user's hand with the rag or paper towel into hard-to-reach places) and inconvenience (cleaning between closely-spaced articles typically requires moving the articles).
To overcome the problems associated with using rags and paper towels, various reusable dust gathering devices using felt and hair have been utilized for more than a century, as illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 823,725 issued in 1906 to Hayden and using yarns as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,145,787. To address the problems with reusable dust gathering devices, disposable cleaning articles have been developed which have limited re-usability. These disposable cleaning articles may include brush portions made of synthetic fiber bundles, called tow fibers, attached to a sheet as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,813,801; 7,003,856; 7,566,671; 7,779,502; 7,937,797; 8,146,197; 8,151,402; 8,161,594, 8,186,001; 8,245,349; 8,528,151; 8,756,746 and 8,763,197.
Disposable dusters may provide for wet cleaning as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,566,671 and commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,803,726 and commonly assigned US 2008/0028560. But tow fibers may become matted when wet and not be suitable for cleaning a large or heavily wetted surface, such as a floor.
To overcome the problem of large and/or heavily wetted surface, floor sheets have been developed. The floor sheets may contain large amounts of absorbent cellulose, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,191,486 and 7,721,381, and may include at least two interior sheets as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,032,577. Floor sheets may contain AGM to further assist in liquid absorption and retention, as disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,960,508; 6,003,191; 6,048,123 and 6,766,552. Yet other attempts to make cleaning pads incorporate both hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,694,379 commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,480,956. Another attempt includes free floating cuffs, as disclosed in commonly assigned 7,028,364. Other relevant attempts in the art include US 2003/0300991; 2011/0041274; U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,245,413; 6,681,434; 6,701,567; 7,458,128; 7,624,468; 8,341,797; 8,707,505 and 8,863,347.
While these attempts are directed to absorption of liquids from a wetted target surface, particularly a floor, problems remain. A generally flat floor sheet presents the same surface to throughout the cleaning task. Dirt can be re-deposited from a saturated floor sheet. And a generally flat floor sheet may not adequately clean into floor crevices or grout lines.
Thus, there is a need for a cleaning article, usable on wetted surface and which presents dynamically changing surface throughout the cleaning task.